Thin

Chapter Three - Weak

Chapter Three – Weak

I press the white button with a 3 written on it, and wait for it to automatically hit the right speed while I slowly walk. That slow walking turns faster as it sets, but I keep walking.  I glance over at the clock above me on the white wall, it reads 11:01. The room holds more shadows and creatures that lurk in the night than light, as the only light on is the rays of white power that the moon releases. I could take all the power and use it up in one night; no one would notice, since no one else is home. The light may be so easy enough to touch, all you have to do is reach out; yet to reach it is harder.

        The timer beeped, five minutes have passed since I started; it’s time to go faster. I push the 6 button and prepare myself to jog.  I jog slowly then as it sets, I start to jog fast, then faster. I have to keep going or everything will go so wrong if I stop. I’ll be fat. Fat Kyleigh; the girl that jiggles all over whenever she moves. I want to be Tiny Minnie Kyleigh; the girl who can wear anything and not worry about how much her fat is sticking out because she doesn’t have any. She’ll be beautiful.  Pure. Amazing.

         Breathe in; breathe out. Deep breath; come on! How amazing does 90 pounds sound? If I work out enough, I can be at that! I’d barley have any fat stored in my body! I’d be so slender, people will want to know my secret on how I did it. Of course, you wouldn’t tell them how you did it, but they’d just keep asking. 

        Getting the inspiration I needed, I pump the speed up to 8.2 and I run. 100 calories burned so far, I need just another 100 or so more until I'm done for tonight.  Burning sounds so nice in my head, bouncing off of the walls of my mind. 

        I close my eyes, letting myself soak in the bliss of burning – burning traces of what no one should never find out: the pizza I gulped down at dinner, hours ago. It was pure evil, filled with fat, thebread drowning in its own grease. How could Dad shove three pieces of that down his throat and actually enjoy the taste, the smell, the grease, the fat, everything that the giant carb had to offer? It disgusted me.

        I feel my legs flying, my body working hard to keep up with them. My head was light, so light I couldn’t even feel it. The numbers displayed on the treadmill that states me how many calories I roughly burned was all blurred out. I couldn’t tell if that was a 7 or a 1. Since when did the wall turn an ugly off-white/vanilla color?

        Oh, Lord. This can’t be good.

        And yet, I keep running the calories off. I can’t stop. I don’t know if I could even stop myself, even if I wanted to stop. Something keeps telling my body to keep going, it’s not my head- my head is shouting that this is a bad idea.  I can’t even hear what my heart is saying; its thumping too loud. My breath is getting harder to catch, or even to maintain. This is bad…worse than ever before.

        I can’t take this; my body can’t take this any longer.

        My finger shakes as it rises to the big red button with the words stop written in white and gently pushes it down.  The moving slows down, but it doesn’t stop completely; so I’m forced to keep running. I don’t know how longer I can keep this going, honestly. I feel so weak.

        It turns out, I can last thirty seconds until it stops completely. I breathe deeply in and out, wishing that I could breathe normally. I wish I was normal; that I didn’t have to do this, that I could just do barely anything and still be as thin as I desire. But why would the world want that for me? Why should anything come easily to me? Everything must be a challenge for stupid, fat Kyleigh. Anything remotely simple would be no fun for fate, karma or whatever the crap you wish to call it.

        The pain hurts; it hurt so badly. Is that what the late passengers of the Titanic felt as they floated out there in the freezing cold Atlantic – wishing that the cold burning that mists sharp daggers over your heart would just hurry on up and finish them off? The dizziness that covers my vision didn’t ease up any either, actually I think it got worse.

        Maybe I just need to sit. Sitting is supposed to make it better right? Yeah, just sit and wait for it to go away.

        Dragging my right leg forward, I match the movement up with my left. It takes so much of the little amount of energy that I actually have left. Since when did they get this heavy? My whole body tears as I try to make my way up the stairs to my room…but it’s so far away. How can I possible make it all that way? It’s not like I can just crash out on the floor or the downstairs couch; what would Dad think when he gets home and finds me there? But it’s so hard to move.

        Right, left; right, left. Oh god, it’s worse; so much worse, now. Three steps and I feel like I walked for ten miles on the hot pavement in the summer, barefoot with tiny rocks stuck to the tore skin and sweat. Taking a break from moving, I close my eyes and lean over in an attempt to catch my breath.

        Hot tears spill out and trail down my cheeks- a reflex to the pain. The tears turn sticky and form a thin hard crust over my broiling face; making it even harder to breathe. Suddenly panicking, I force down my eye lids tightly and try to force air to come out of my lungs, then hoping it would return to them.

        Feeling myself start to wobble unsteadily on my knees, I try to extend my arm out, groping for the nearby wall. The wall isn’t there; left there with only the wide open air to support me. I start to wall to my right, unable to help myself.

        Please, please don’t land on my head, I silently pray.

        Not wanting to look at where exactly I’ll end up in seconds, my eyes remain closed.  I know I am a mere centimeters from the cold wooden floor of the hall, this will hurt. I brace myself for it, but I don’t think it will work.  Suddenly everything goes blank and dark with my head dragging me down, filled with rocks instead of a brain. Everything goes black with fright.